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4/13/2010

US Debt Clock

Check out this website. It shows real-time, updated numbers for a multitude of various aspects of the economy. Moving the mouse over each topic provides a brief explanation of how that particular number is calculated, as well as the source of the numbers. A few of the numbers that stick out to me are the total debt per family ($690,000+) and the income per family ($62,000+). Another interesting number is the total assets per citizen, valued at around $234,000+. One caveat: many of these numbers come from Congressional Budget Office, which as we've discussed in class, is required to state the numbers based solely on the face value of written legislation and not necessarily on what ends up actually happening.

6 comments:

This website is very cool. One thing I noticed just by stepping back from the screen is the difference in the pace of the numbers. The red numbers, which represent debt and the green numbers, which represent assets are going up at different speeds. The scary thing that you can see when you step back is that the red numbers are going up a lot faster than the green ones. With the current administration and recent bills passed there is no sign of these numbers slowing down.